Sean Beckwith

Our work probing the molecular determinants of Ty1 retrotransposon restriction specificity in yeast is out in PLOS Genetics! 🧵 @DJayGarfinkel journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/a…

Great experience publishing our first micropublication (@Micropub7n)! Perfect journal venue for a phenotype we observed that may have otherwise languished in a lab notebook, but instead is now available and citable ✅ micropublication.org/journals/biolo…

Great time sharing our science at WMRUGS this past weekend! Posters from student researchers Alexa, Mackenzie, and Awesome and a strong contingent from Hope College!

Congratulations to Dr. Beckwith on his newly published article! 🎉

So, do similar capsid-capsid interactions exist in other transposons, viruses, or exapted capsid genes? And could this framework be used to engineer highly specific inhibitors against transposons or viruses?

And despite the different evolutionary trajectories in Ty1c and Ty1', both restriction mechanisms target the same binding interface. Just 3 amino acid differences in this interface is enough to direct the inhibitory protein to its respective transposon.

Our work probing the molecular determinants of Ty1 retrotransposon restriction specificity in yeast is out in PLOS Genetics! 🧵 @DJayGarfinkel journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/a…

Job alert! My department at Hope College is hiring a tenure-track molecular biologist! Come join us at a small liberal arts college with strong faculty research in beautiful West Michigan! Job ad: jobs.hope.edu/postings/4850

Students are working with budding yeast in the Advanced Cell Biology lab and practicing Petri dish art while learning to work with yeast cells for their semester-long course research projects

Postdoc opening in David Garfinkel's lab at University of Georgia researching the yeast Ty1 retrotransposon! Fantastic training environment (I would know! 😃) ugajobsearch.com/postings/437032

Lab fun during summer 2025! Kayaking with the biology program, sampling all the ice cream/froyo/frozen custard shops in Holland, and hosting President Scogin and Provost Griffin in the lab.

We had a great time participating in the Schaap Chemistry Symposium! Here, Beckwith Lab students Justin, Awesome, and Alexa present their summer research projects!

🧬Happy Transposon Day! 🎉Each year on the 16th of June we commemorate the birthdate of the founder of transposable element research, Barbara McClintock (1902-1992). Check out quotes from editors and popular content on our #TransposonDay2025 page 👉mobilednajournal.biomedcentral.com/transposonday2…

Job alert! My department at Hope College is hiring a tenure-track microbiologist! Come join us at a small liberal arts college with strong faculty research in beautiful West Michigan! Job ad: jobs.hope.edu/postings/4187